


how do we forgive ourselves for all the things we did not become?

by sunsetsofeternity (lets_fangirl)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: A little bit of fluff maybe, Angst, Basically just angst, Letters, M/M, also murder, very vague mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 15:19:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4142640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lets_fangirl/pseuds/sunsetsofeternity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"When they told me you were dead, I think a part of me died as well."</em>
</p><hr/><p>After a job goes wrong, Ray finds himself writing letters to the dearly departed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how do we forgive ourselves for all the things we did not become?

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to Doc Luben and his slam poem "14 Lines from Love Letters or Suicide Notes" for the title.
> 
> I'm still trying to get out of this writing funk I've found myself in. RIP me.
> 
> There are a couple of references in here to things outside of RTAH, which I'll mention in the end notes. They're all pretty obvious, though.
> 
>  
> 
> Enjoy!<3

**1**.

I am sorry, I am so sorry that I was not enough for you. I wanted to capture you in a cage and keep you for my own, when I should have left you be free. I did not understand you in the way you craved.

You are somewhere where I cannot find you now, and although your absence leaves me with this ache I cannot yet place, I think that this is best.

You deserve more than I can ever give you.

I will miss you.

I do not think you will miss me.

 **2**.

Someone once told me that love is blind.

Now that I look back on it, I think it was Geoff. It was the night we met, I think. We were talking about Jack, and I asked _why_. I do not remember why I asked this, whether I meant _why did you choose Jack_ or _why did you and Jack pursue this way of life_.

He said to me, around a glass of whiskey, _love is blind, kid. And I love that idiot._

Now, I wonder if he was really ever right. I knew exactly what I was getting into when I fell in love with you. I’ve known for years. I was not blind, nor have I ever been.

Perhaps this is why Jack and Geoff have lasted where we did not.

Maybe it was because we were afraid to kiss with our eyes closed.

I did not want to open my eyes and find that I had dreamt you.

Then again, I have fallen in love with you over and over but it has always been different versions of you, the ones you show to the people who dare to look hard enough.

After all these years, I do not know which one is the real you. I am afraid to look and see that you are someone else, that the real you was a you that you never allowed me to see.

I think maybe I was blind with my eyes wide open.

 **3**.

I wanted to call you today and remembered I was not allowed to.

We were best friends, once. A kaleidoscope of long limbs and loud laughter and firefly grins – we were not always Venice, doomed to sink. There was a time before we were _us_ , and were instead on the brink of something special.

I do not regret any of this.

I wish I did.

 **4**.

When they told me you were dead, I think I cried.

Perhaps one day I will be high enough to reach you. Until then, I will be reaching and _reaching_ because I will not forget. You asked me, once – when we were new to Los Santos, and you were on your way out to a risky job with Ryan, you asked me not to forget you.

Nothing is ever really forgotten, I think. Not really. We just can’t find it, but I will always find _you_. You and your sunkissed skin and patchwork heart. How could I ever lose you? How could I ever forget you?

When they told me you were dead, I think a part of me died as well.

 **5**.

You told me once that I would make a good writer.

I wouldn’t. I am all semantics and odd metaphors that don’t quite work. I am too personal and too formal at the same time. I am almost a good writer, as I am almost a good sniper. A good friend. Boyfriend. Son.

I was almost your future, but I let you go.

When we were back in Liberty City, on some job for Burnie, the two of us sat out on the roof to my step dad’s shed. You pointed out all the constellations you recognized, told me the tales that your own father had passed down to you. When you were done, you asked me what my least favorite word was.

I don’t remember what I answered, but I remember what you answered – you said _almost_ , and at the time, I didn’t know why.

I know now.

And I am so sorry. You were on the brink of _something beautiful_ , but you couldn’t quite reach. You fell too far.

You were _almost_ there. I know you were – a little more and you would’ve made it. I remember Ashley saying you would do best to learn some patience—

You fell, and I wasn’t there to catch you.

 **6**.

I miss you.

I just thought you’d like to know.

 **7**.

They told me today that I missed your funeral.

Jack took me out to your gravestone. It was in the backyard of our old safe house, the one we stayed at for years.

When I asked why, Jack said it was because that house was always your favorite.

When I asked why, Jack said it was because you met me there.

It’s a beautiful grave. I wish I had decided to bring flowers. Roses, maybe. Jack said it was okay – _maybe next time_.

I do not think I want to go back. It is too permanent, a reminder that you are not _here_ anymore. I want you to come home. I do not want you in the ground under your favorite tree behind your favorite safe house. I want you here.

You deserve _life_. More than any of us.

 **8**.

Michael and I sat up on the shed tonight.

It was weird, I think. We have not spent all that much time together since I came here, to Los Santos. It felt strange. Not like coming home. Which was strangest. There were years before I met you where I was maybe in love with Michael Jones, and I had once thought that he would always be my home.

I felt like a stranger, up on our shed.

He asked me to show him some constellations, but I could not. The stars are barely visible, now – too much smog or perhaps they all left us as they searched for the little boy with wheat-colored hair and emeralds for eyes.

I hope they find you, somewhere. I hope your heaven is an observatory, and that you are never deprived of your stars and planets and moons and galaxies.

I hope your heaven is void of almosts.

But I don’t think Michael understood why I could not show him. Not really.

I look up at the sky and think of you, think of the galaxies I found in your eyes and the planets that came together to create you. I think of the stardust in your kisses and your half-crescent moonlit smile.

I want so badly for him to understand.

I want my hands to stop shaking.

I want to stop romanticizing your death.

 **9**.

You once told me I was broken.

It was the night you found out I have never drank a drop of alcohol, nor did I ever want to – it was ridiculous. A moral I was holding onto from my childhood. I would kill and torture and tear families apart and even participate in the weekly toke-up with the guys at Cockbite, but I would never drink.

I didn’t tell you why, then. I was afraid, perhaps. Afraid that you would think me a coward or worse, sentimental.

I wanted to impress you, even back then.

You told me I was broken but as we grew closer, I saw that it was you who was broken – you were sharp limbs and a barely beating heart, danger in your smile and death in your gaze. I was broken, maybe, but you were shattered.

Geoff and Michael think you always have been.

I think that maybe I’m shattered now, too.

 **10**.

I thought about you today.

I once said that I hope your heaven is an observatory. I realize, now, how childish that had been. You are not a saint, you have never been. You have always been the devil incarnate, the little voice in my head jeering as I snap a neck or pull a trigger.

You are not the angel on my shoulder. You are the demon.

Your hell will be the kiss of temptation, the fires that licks at your feet. You will be at home there.

I once said I wanted to stop romanticizing your death. You died shielding Michael from a frag grenade. You should have lived. You are the devil, immortal and everlasting. But the fragments embedded themselves too deep and there were too many. You bled out before we could save you. You died to save your best friend, and although we are not good people, there was something pure to you then – and for a moment, I saw the lovely lad that had stolen Burnie’s heart and ran around little Oxfordshire with Dan Gruchy. You were not always this.

Your death was the beginning of my end. Our end. I don’t know.

There is so much that I do not know. I wish I did.

I once said that maybe I was blind with my eyes wide open. You were a magician, a trickster spirit. I was under your spell. I wish I still could not see the truth. It was easier, then. I do not know who you were. I did not write your eulogy and the epigraph on your gravestone says nothing other than _a good man_. You were danger and death, sweetness and life. I wanted, so badly, for you to show yourself to me.

Have I seen the real you?

It will not be long until I find out, I think.

I love you. Even if I do not know the real you, I love you. You were my forever, and now you are nothing but my best _i’ll never know_.

–X-Ray ❤

**Author's Note:**

>  **i**. Plenty of references to Bianca Phillipi's slam poem 'Almosts', particularly in letters 5+8.  
>  **ii**. "Maybe I dreamt you," (Letter 2 alludes to this) comes from Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Cycle. I can't remember which book in particular.. brownRIP.  
>  **iii**. "my best i'll never know." (Letter 10) comes from Fall Out Boy's Fourth of July.  
>  **iv**. "I wanted to call you today but remember I was not allowed to." / "we were Venice, doomed to sink." comes from a tumblr poem I cannot remember the name of right now. I'll edit this later with the right credit.  
>  **v**. "Nothing is ever really forgotten, I think. Not really." 100% a reference to DW that I didn't even notice. RIP me. Shout out to Jem for pointing it out to me.


End file.
